The Golem And Artificial Intelligence- A Churning Of Folklore And Science

The Golem And Artificial Intelligence- A Churning Of Folklore And Science

The creation of Artificial Intelligence through codes, with silicon as base shares similarities with the creation of the Golem through an incantation with soil as base even though the latter is part of a fable. There is an apocryphal story that was narrated to a graduate student in MIT’s AI laboratories during the 1970s. It is about three pioneers in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI)- Joel Moses, Gerry Sussman and Marvin Minsky. Joel was speaking of an event that happened at his bar mitzvah, the initiation ceremony of a Jewish boy when he reaches the age of 13. His grandfather called him aside and told him that he was a descendant of famous Rabbi Juddah Loew (1525-1609). The Rabbi was famous for having created a Golem (a being made…